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Fisher Team update, Feb 2013

Greetings Stakeholders,

The Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project would like to provide an update on changes that have occurred recently within our fisher wildlife research team, located near our southern research site, and plans for this research moving forward.

The team has recently hired two new employees to replace others that have moved on, bringing the SNAMP fisher crew up to four full-time staff. Gary Roller, formerly of the SNAMP forest team, is the on-site project manager. The fisher crew is currently tracking 28 fisher with radio-collars, and telemetry flights continue five times a week. SNAMP camera grid surveys are continuing, as well as the collection of vegetation information around known den sites. Fisher mortalities will continue to be collected for future analysis.

The team's lead researcher, Dr. Rick Sweitzer, is currently focusing on analysis of the last five years of data in preparation for our final report due in 2014 and so is no longer available to oversee live trapping of fisher. To follow permit requirements for trapping of live animals, the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station will be conducting all future handling of fisher. Dr. Kathryn Purcell and her research team, who have been studying fishers to the south of the SNAMP area near the Kings River, will conduct all trapping, handling or collaring needs that may arise in this final year of field work.

SNAMP involvement in Pacific fisher fieldwork will end in December 2013, though researchers will continue to work on fisher data analysis, synthesis and interpretation until the end of the SNAMP project in 2014.

For a summary of the SNAMP fisher fieldwork plan for 2013, please click here.

To keep the public and stakeholders informed about the status of the project, we will be posting regular updates about the activities of the SNAMP fisher team on the project website in the coming months.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. Thanks for your on-going support of this project.